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How to Learn Piano with Technology

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Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#21

Post by jerf »

tazard wrote: post #18
RickJWagner wrote: post #13

I bet it's not as effective as an old lady with 5 decades of piano teaching experience. Every town has one.

Although I'm not totally disagreeing, I think a lot depends on the student/teacher relationship. Growing up I had piano lessons and the two people teaching me (not at the same time) were very nice/patient/encouraging, however they never really grabbed my attention the way goofing off and playing with the different piano voices, and following along with my pianos built in"tutor" songs did. I think my earlier more trad…

It also depends on the student/teacher match. I took piano for many years as a child. Unfortunately, I had a teacher who was firmly an advocate of the Suzuki method. The Suzuki method is a good method for some students that highly emphasizes precision. Songs are played over and over again until they are rigidly precise. I do not necessarily have an objection to this in principle, but for myself, I have a very small "twitch" in me that is normally wildly subclinical, but makes it very difficult for me to hold a rigidly steady beat for more than a minute or two without a twitch showing up. Even by the standards of music this normally wouldn't mean much, I never even noticed it playing trombone in band, even marching band, but in the Suzuki program it meant I was stuck playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star in a variety of rhythms for what looms in my memory as years. I don't know how long it actually was, but it was way too long; by the time I moved on, I could only play sheet music in C, a crippling blow for a pianist.

Or, so I thought. A couple of years after I stopped formal lessons, I started composing on keyboard, and was deeply shocked to discover that when I was doing my own thing, I had no problem whatsoever playing in the key of my choice. It turns out that if you play enough scales for a given key, you can play in that key just fine.

Nevertheless I never did develop the ability to play sheet music in arbitrary keys without a lot of work constantly going into remembering the key.

I would have done a lot better with a teacher that figured out the Suzuki method was a poor match for me. Or if I had had enough knowledge to figure that out myself.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#23

Post by nine_k »

bumelant wrote: post #20

Piano is not about mechanics. Everyone can do that. Piano is not about playing. It’s about hearing! And no app can replace professional human being with ability to hear these tiny nuances. Sorry to say that but if you want to play music, not piano, get a teacher.

Even if no app can replace a critiquing and guiding human teacher entirely, it could try.

Do many apps try that? Maybe it's a huge opportunity.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#25

Post by jlg23 »

bumelant wrote: post #20

Piano is not about mechanics. Everyone can do that. Piano is not about playing. It’s about hearing! And no app can replace professional human being with ability to hear these tiny nuances. Sorry to say that but if you want to play music, not piano, get a teacher.

I agree that a teacher is invaluable, but for training your muscle memory (and sheet reading, if one does not already), apps can be a good-enough substitute: Instant feedback for almost free, visual aids that even a teacher could not provide, 24/7 availability.

Of course, some physical basics (like posture for piano, breathing for wind instruments) are ideally established correctly right from the start and that's where even a few hours spent on professional help will pay off.

Things I paid a teacher for (flute) that could have been easily checked by an app:

* tone: the right one? does it come out clean?

* pace: am I keeping the pace correctly? (a metronome does not flash red when I am out of sync, the 11 year old me could ignore it really well..)

* loudness

And last but not least: Apps work everywhere, lessons with teachers are hard to get in some places. When my parents decided we move, I had the choice between a 2h commute for a 45 minute lesson or to wait about 1.5 years for a place with a local teacher (despite having given solo concerts already). I stopped playing and regret it to this day.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#26

Post by organsnyder »

These sorts of tools are definitely useful, especially for those that otherwise wouldn't have access to music instruction. But there would be huge pieces missing: teaching musicianship (perfect accuracy is a bad thing), finding repertoire to engage the student, arranging performance opportunities...

Basically, I think these tools replace bad piano teachers. Of course, there are a lot of bad piano teachers out there (a large percentage of all teachers, I'm sure), so I'm not saying that this sort of thing doesn't have value in increasing access.

Disclaimer: I might be a bit biased, since I have a music degree, have taken ~15 years of piano/organ lessons, and am also married to a piano teacher.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#28

Post by gjulianm »

jrimbault wrote: post #10
mmjaa wrote: post #3

It should be noted that there is a great Linux clone of Synthesia (which is awesome, btw!): http://linthesia.sourceforge.net EDIT: I wouldn't necessarily agree that learning a piece with [Syn,Lin]thesia means you don't gain any theory - its really a matter of picking your piece. Learn some great theory by loading it up with a Debussy! Screenshots here: https://screenshots.debian.net/package/linthesia

I started studying piano as child (music theory also), and still do 15-20 years later. I cannot, at all , play from something like synthesia. I need partitions. I wonder why.

Me neither. I don't think synthesia is even remotely comparable in usefulness to a partition. It's really hard to read ahead (without the keyboard reference it seems really hard to identify which note is which) and estimating note duration from the note length is not as easy as just looking at the note. I always thought it was more of a gimmick (when talking about reading piano specifically, I assume it's more useful when creating music) than something actually useful.

Re: How to Learn Piano with Technology

#29

Post by bumelant »

bumelant wrote: post #20

Piano is not about mechanics. Everyone can do that. Piano is not about playing. It’s about hearing! And no app can replace professional human being with ability to hear these tiny nuances. Sorry to say that but if you want to play music, not piano, get a teacher.

Sure, computers can be very helpful to master certain skills like learning to read music or maybe mastering some aspect of technique. But to decompose music into aspects like tone, pace and so on is a huge oversimplification. And by learning to play piano I assume one want's to play music. Playing piano again in my view is about hearing, you have to play it in mind, make it sing, and only then bring that to the instrument. The instrument is just a tool.
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